


Hide and Seek

by raktajinos



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Children's Stories, Experiences of Young Girls, Friendship, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2156844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/pseuds/raktajinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi and Mezoti play hide and seek. (wow need a better summary)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hide and Seek

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jacquelee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/gifts).



> I took some timeline liberties....  
> 1) Mezoti stayed aboard alongside Icheb.  
> 2) Voyager doesn't get home via the transwarb hub

Ensign Naomi Wildman lifted her head from the panel she’d been laying under for the past hour, her ears cocked for the sound again. Engineering was unusually quiet, the rest of the crew at a party on holodeck two, with only essential staff on rotation. She loved a party, but this echo in the neuros gel system had been driving her batty all week and she was damned if she wasn’t going to fix it tonight. In the silence of the bay, it was only her own breathing and muttered swearing that could be heard. 

But there it was again. Soft, barely noticeable. But she knew the sounds of this ship just as well as B’elanna or Kathryn so even the slightest variation caught her attention. 

She moved from under the panel, groaning as her knees protested the change paired with a kink in her neck from working at the odd angle too long. She heard the sound again, accompanied by a scuffing sound. Naomi smiled, and turned towards the corner of the bay. Leaning around the mag station partition she looked down to see two little children huddled together - Yvonne and Ezria Delainey, hands clasped over their mouths trying to keep their giggles in. 

They looked up at her, expressions a mix of guilt, concern and glee and she grinned back at them. 

“Hide and seek?” she asked, whispering. 

The two girls nodded, “from Miral,” said Yvonne. 

“Ahhh, she’s very good at this game,” Naomi said and the girls nodded again, looking forlorne. 

“You know who’s better?” she said, her voice taking on a conspiratorial sound. 

The girls shook their heads. 

“Me,”

“You?!” Ezria exclaimed loudly, her sister smacking her to shush her up. 

“Vi! Shut up, you’ll give us away,” 

Yvonne smacked her sister back lightly, and lowered her voice, “you?”

Naomi laughed. “I know the best places to hide on this ship,” she whispered, a devious look in her eyes. 

The girls eyes’ widened and they leaned forward a bit, eager to hear more. 

Memories flickering through her mind, of all the times she’d played hide and seek on the ship as a child. Being the only child for so many years, she spent many an hour exploring every nook and cranny of the ship, frequently to B’elanna’s frustration as she crawled into delicate sections of the ship. She could navigate her way through Voyager just in her mind, every jefferies tube and gel pack branded into her memory. 

Hide and seek was her favourite game, though her mother had set up a ‘safe word’ for the crew to use in case there was an emergency and they needed to know she was safe. It had been used on more than one occasion, to her mother’s constant worry. 

For years Neelix played with her, he had always been excellent at hide and seek. Longing pulled at Naomi’s heart when she thought of Neelix; she still talked to him regularly, and she was glad to see him happy with his family, but she still missed her Neelix. Chakotay and Harry also would play with her often enough and Seven would, but only if Naomi could justify the game as a scientific learning experience or a ‘human’ tradition Seven should understand. Though as she grew up, she suspected that Seven had indulged her more than her inherent Borgness had let on. 

It was really when Mezoti came aboard that Naomi honed her hide and seek skills. She’d been scared of the girl - and really all the borg children - when they first joined. She was too young to really understand what they had experienced and she was frightened by their mechanical implants and stilted way of speaking. She knew they were like Seven, but Seven wasn’t _Borg_ , not in the way Naomi understood them at that time. Her entire childhood she had heard horror stories of the Borg, stories that kept her up at night crying into her pillow. Despite her age, and maybe because of it, she had to participate in drills that prepared for a Borg boarding; practicing how to hide her biosignature and where to hide. At least the latter was something she was good at. 

She remembered the first time she was told to go play with Mezoti. She didn’t learn until years later what had happened those days, all she knew then was that Mezoti and Icheb would be staying aboard and her mother was really excited that she’d have a playmate her own age. 

_  
“But I have Neelix, I don’t need a new friend,” she’d complained._

_“Naomi,” her mother said in that tone that said she thought her daughter was being ridiculous. “You need other children to play with, people your own age,”_

_Naomi huffed and crossed her arms over her chest._

_“And what about when Neelix is working...wouldn’t you like someone to play with…” her mother hedged, trying a new tactic._

_Naomi considered it for a moment, she would like someone during his shifts._

_“She’s weird though!”_

_“She’s just like you Naomi,”_

_“No, she’s Borg,” Naomi said defensively, harshness in her voice._

_“True. But so is Seven and you like her right?”_

_“Yes. But Seven is different,”_

_“Not really. And it took you a while to like Seven right. You were afraid of her...but then you got to know her and realized there was nothing to be afraid of. Do you think maybe Mezoti could be the same?”_

_“Maybe,” Naomi relented._

_“Naomi, she needs you,” her mother said, kneeling on the floor in front of her._

_“She needs me?”_

_“Can you imagine how she’s feeling? She just came from a scary Borg ship, she doesn’t know anyone here, she’s all alone...with no friends…,” her mother said._

_Naomi’s earlier protest died a little bit, sympathy for Mezoti filling her instead of the fear and anger. That would be scary._

_“The Captain made you her Assistant for a reason. She needs you to do this job,” her mother said._

_Naomi straightened at the mention of her title, it was a position she took very seriously._

_“Then I will do it. As the Captain’s Assistant, I need to make sure everyone on the ship feels welcome,” she said, face determined._

_Her mother smiled warmly at her, “that’s right….let’s go then,” she said extending her hand which Naomi grasped tightly._

__

 

She was escorted to the cargo bay by her mother and Neelix, her hands gripping theirs tightly as she prepared for her ‘mission’. She really had thought it was a mission and it wasn’t until years later that she realized that her mother knew she could get Naomi to do pretty much anything if she name dropped her title from the Captain; things she should have done anyways, but she was a determined child who wasn’t easily swayed...except by a childish concept of duty. 

__

_“It’s going to be fine Naomi,” her mother said calmly._

_“Of course it is!” Neelix said in his usual bright tone._

_Naomi steeled herself, putting her best Starfleet face on and walked towards the door of the cargo bay where Seven and Mezoti were waiting on the other side, the swoosh of the mechanism sealing her fate._

__

It was funny now, in retrospect, because Mezoti became her best friend, they practically were attached at the hip since that very day. It had been awkward at first, neither of them knowing what to do, but then Naomi had suggested a game of hide and seek. Mezoti had never heard of it, but was eager to play it once Naomi had explained the rules. 

One of the drawbacks of playing the game with a genetically enhanced pseudo-drone child was that she was exceptionally better at it. At first, Naomi had a home court advantage, knowing the ship as she did, but Mezoti learned that quickly enough. What really helped even the playing field was Naomi’s friendship with the crew; everyone liked her and was always eager to help her find new hiding places. 

The Captain was especially eager to help her, particularly if Naomi was trying to hide from the Commander. The Captain would help her squeeze into the small space behind the command chairs and the upper part of the bridge, barely enough space for her tiny body, but it was a good spot. She never gave that one up, always preferring to just be sitting in his chair whenever he looped back around to the bridge, everyone laughing. 

Tuvok would let her hide underneath his security terminal and occasionally in the brig, giving her a gentle tilt of the head when she asked. Mezoti was too afraid of Tuvok’s stoic nature to even attempt to hide near him, but Naomi knew he wasn’t scary. 

One time, she was trying to hide in Mezoti’s regeneration station when Seven caught her, a wry smile on her face as she realized what she was trying to do. _“You may be more effective if you push the biofuel tubes to the left,” was all she had said before walking away._ That turned out to be a great suggestion and Naomi was able to hide amongst the Borg technology for well over an hour before Mezoti found her. 

Neelix though, he was the best for hiding and once she had Mezoti to play with, he showed her some of his favourite spots on the ship - one’s she hadn’t known about (like the hidden pantry cupboard in the mess). Though she suspected he played both sides, helping Mezoti as well; he was never very good at playing favourites when it came to children. 

Private quarters were off limits, as was the Captain’s office, but everything else was fair game, though they tended to avoid hiding on the main floor of engineering when the two of them had accidently caused a warp core ejection during a maintenance cycle. B’elanna and Lieutenant Carey were so mad that afternoon and Naomi and Mezoti avoided engineering all together for nearly a month out of embarrassment. It had been Tom that forced them to go back, luring them by pretending he needed their help to surprise B’elanna with a birthday gift. 

Lost in her memories, Naomi turned her attention back to the two children in front of her. She was too old to play the game now, ‘well most of the time anyways’ she thought with a smile. But should could help these two. 

“Did you know about the secret pantry…..” she asked, smiling widely.


End file.
